intro/Chapt.1

From: Dot Robbins (drobbins@socket.net)
Date: Sun Apr 01 2001 - 18:48:59 PDT


Dear Friends,
Never meant to write to Peggy on line, sorry, it was a mistake! The
thoughts on "expansion" are very interesting.
Here are some questions I have:

1). Vygotsky warned against the dangers of placing various aspects of
theories together forming one theory. It can
lead to reductionism. Of course, he has been found guilty of doing this,
except for the fact that he came up with his own
original theory. I was very interested to read so many authors who were
mentioned, and was glad
that people like Bratus, Fichtner, etc. were also included. I am
wondering about placing so many
ideas together. Habermas has been criticized for placing the ideas of
Freud and Marx together. I have not read
the rest of the book by YE and will be interested to see how it plays
out. I am fascinated to discover how a model, based
on Vygotskian thought, will emerge in the book. The idea of "expansion"
seems to be extremely interesting. It appears
that the criticism Vygotsky gave to Luria needs to be re-examined: can
areas such as Freudianism, or Jungian
archetypes and the collective unconscious, be brought together? Vygotsky
certainly believed in including aspects of
the unconscious in his theories of art and aesthetics, related to
images, motives, etc. How can this dichotomy be
bridged without reductionism?

2). I did not have the same take on Habermas. YE stated that Habermas "
seems to see hope only outside the system of production and
administration." Habermas has often stated that "modern representation"
has contributed to
a lack of healthy public spheres. Habermas tried to establish a cross
referential model of reconstruction of European thought.....for him the
empirical-analytic process is too objective and monological; the
historical-hermeneutic process is too subjective and relativistic. These
models were always connected to various "interests" behind them.
Habermas wanted to bridge the apparent gap mentioned in the other
theories by including an emancipatory interest within a communicative
ethics. Habermas still wants to create an ethics within communication,
where each person would be able to use all speech acts, or
speak openly and critically, without the usual consequences. The
combination of a linguistic model with moral development ran into
problems, but I have never seen Habermas wanting to work outside the
system, although some postmodernists claim
this position for him. In my understanding, Habermas especially was/is
interested in placing morality back into technology and science, and
that is why he keeps claiming that human "rationality" has not reached
its heights. One of the problems that I see
with Habermas is the lack of "self reflection" being placed within
communicative competence/Universal Pragmatics. With the high level of
institutionalization today, Habermas states that the communication
process is completely distorted, resulting in "technical" domination.
This is a problem when relating Vygotskian thought to the societal level
and it will be interesting to see if this level is discussed in the
book. What I mean is simply linking the individual to the social,
without critical reflection of the social, and the reverse. There seems
to be so little discussion of a meta-understanding of how a new society
could look
like, and the last discussion of that type appears to be Marxist.
Perhaps the social element will indeed become more
regional with the development of technology to connect us, instead of
more national and international, or perhaps there
will be an entirely new construction of the understanding of the social,
international, regional, etc. I
sincerely feel that there needs to be a re-evaluation of Marxism as a
societal model, but within the understanding of
Carrillo's Eurocommunism in Spain, and other such models.
The question then is: will theory building within YE's activity theory
include praxis within societal change? Societal change will
come through education, I assume. It is interesting
that to date there really are very few schools based on the theories of
Vygotsky, and little theory placed into
real revolutionary praxis (with exceptions, such as the work of Lois
Holzman et al.). In other words, Vygotsky seems
to be almost status quo, with his name being a consumable commodity
instead of a force for societal change.

3). YE seemed to be stating in the introduction that Vygotsky focused on
the individual, and I think that we need to re-evaluate that
premise. In the introduction there was the statement that "The
limitation of the first generation was that the unit of analysis
remained individually focused." One of the very interesting aspects of
Vygotsky is the connectedness of the individual with the
social and the reverse. I see Vygotsky's works as always placing the
individual with the social, and the social was
questioned at that point in time, trying to take education as the
driving force to connect the social/individual in a revolutionary
perspective. It seems that there was a linking of aspects and not a
one-sided perspective. The idea was to place
elements into units that could reflect the elements holistically, at the
same time. This is a holographic approach and it is
common in many theories today, such as complexity theory, but does not
seem to represent a common approach to
theory building in post-Vygotskian research. Surely it is the
dialectical reciprocity that fuels development,
not within a linear, nor vertical/horizontal dichotomy, nor a
generalization to concrete model only. It is the spiral
nature of the dialectic connected to the whole that I perceive to be one
core ingredient of Vygotsky's thinking.
It is interesting that Habermas' goal within communicative rationality
is autonomy and responsibility, gained through emancipatory interests
and argumentative/truthful discourse. One of Vygotsky's goals is
self-regulation (within a new educational approach that was called
"pedology."). In postmodern
society there is a focus on the disconnectedness of the individual, and
this is reflected in most of our institutional
settings, not all. So, much research is based on finding results and
solutions to problems within an individualized approach.
Vygotsky did not take the individualized approach that is understood in
postmodern societies, nor has
Habermas, who requires a mutual, communicative consensus as a solution.
I am hoping that in further chapters
or in further discussions there will be thought given to the extremely
problematic nature of theorizing about the
individual and the social in more critical terms (something that is
positive for Habermas)....in many of the later
works of the followers of Vygotsky, I don't see critical discussions of
this type. In other words,
how can individuals become self-regulated and autonomous, and still find
a link to changing institutional structures
to create more solidarity? how can Vygotskian theory actually be put
into revolutionary praxis today? Certainly,
the aspect of theory building will need to change, and it is for this
reason that the book selected is very
appreciated. The aspect of "expansion" will be very interesting to
follow in the chapters.

With best wishes,
Dot

P.S. It is interesting to note that while Habermas was writing on his
Universal Pragmatics, he
had not read the works of Vygotsky (or many--any??-- Russian thinkers).
He stated this somewhere.I remember reading that he simply said that he
did not have the time to read everything in the world. It would be
interesting
to know if this has now changed.



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